Joe Scarborough: Ted Cruz ‘willfully ignorant’ on the U.S. Constitution

Since arriving on the scene in Congress just a few months ago, junior Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has been outspoken in public appearances and hearings on issues including Obama’s cabinet confirmations, the Benghazi attacks. He recently had a dust-up before the Senate Judiciary Committee with his colleague, California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

That recent brawl has drawn the ire of MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough. On his Friday program, Scarborough chastised Cruz and accused the Harvard Law graduate of being “willfully ignorant” on matters regarding the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“Did Ted Cruz not go to law school?” Scarborough said. “Did they teach Ted Cruz to read what the Supreme Court said especially in the landmark — the landmark — decision regarding Second Amendment rights? Over 200 years was written in 2008. And I’m just wondering, why would he use his seat on the Judiciary Committee, if he went to Harvard, to put forward a willfully ignorant statement about this bill violating the Second Amendment, because it does not. And Ted Cruz knows it does not. So who is he playing for? Is he playing for people who can’t read or are illiterate?”

“I don’t understand,” Scarborough continued. “You know, there are a lot of people out there who support Ted Cruz’s position that will say, ‘this is not a violation of the Second Amendment,’ but however have real concerns because you take this first step, the next thing you know they’re going to try to overturn Heller, they’re going to take my shotguns.

“They’re going to try to get my hunting rifle. I don’t mean to go on and on here, but I am so shocked that he would continue to use his seat in the Judiciary Committee to just mislead millions of Americans and put forward a willfully ignorant position on what the Constitution says and what it does not say.”

Scarborough continued to use the 2008 D.C. v. Heller case as proof Cruz was out of bounds in his criticism of Feinstein’s gun control proposals and advised him to “read the damn case law.”

“[I]f Ted Cruz wants to say the Second Amendment — I believe the Second Amendment should protect people’s rights to have assault weapons or semi-automatic weapons, or whatever linguistic game, whatever semantic game they want to play at the NRA, whatever Bushmasters are — if he wants to say I personally believe the Second Amendment should protect these rights and is absolute and contains all these things that Justice [Antonin] Scalia and Justice [Clarence] Thomas and Justice [Anthony] Kennedy and Justice [Samuel] Alito, and you know conservative justices — if he wants to say it, that’s fine,” Scarborough said. “I’ve got no problem with that and I know people who believe that should be contained within Heller and the Second Amendment. It’s just not.”

“So when he suggests to [Sen.] Dianne Feinstein, or lectures her that she is violating the Second Amendment, that this impinges upon Second Amendment rights, that’s just false,” he continued. “And that’s what’s so disturbing to me. This is an opinion. This is fact. Read the damn case law. And he keeps doing it and it’s driving me crazy because he supposedly is a learned man.”